The present invention relates to an appliance holder for receiving an electrical appliance and a pair of electrical wires to energize the electrical appliance, and more particularly to a lamp holder wherein the electrical appliance is a lamp.
In their most basic form a string of lights, of the type used to illuminate Christmas trees, windows, housing outlines and the like during Christmas and other festive occasions, comprises a plurality of lights disposed in series on a pair of electrical wires. One of the wires is the active wire, and the other is the return or ground. Because the failure of a single lamp breaks the series circuit and extinguishes all the bulbs, in an improved embodiment each lamp socket or husk is disposed in a parallel circuit with the active and ground wires of the pair. This permits other bulbs in the series circuit to remain on even though one or more of the bulbs in a parallel circuit is broken or removed. Alternatively, each bulb in the plurality of bulbs wired in series can have two filaments: an illumination filament and a continuity filament. If the illumination filament breaks or burns out, the continuity filament allows the other bulbs in the series circuit to continue to illuminate. In a complex embodiment of the light string, the bulbs are divided into various sets, with the various sets flashing alternately to produce an interesting visual impact. In this embodiment there are a plurality of active wires, one for each set of lights. The present invention is particularly useful in connection with this complex embodiment of the string light system.
The known complex string lights have not proven to be entirely satisfactory in use. As the plurality of active wires and the one or more ground wires must extend the full length of the string, means must be provided for keeping the various wires in a relatively neat aesthetic package. To this end, the various wires are often twisted together in a spiral, but the spiral often unwinds during storage or mounting or unmounting of the strings. Fastening members have also been used to mechanically couple the wires intermediate the bulb sockets thereof, in order to maintain the wires together as they travel from one socket to another. While this has worked satisfactorily for the relatively small and hence lightweight bulbs typically employed indoors as Christmas tree decorations, it has not worked as well with the larger and therefore heavier bulbs commonly used outdoors for decorating porches, outlining house roofs or the like.
The active wire for a particular bulb socket must by itself support the bulb socket and bulb depending therefrom against not only the force of gravity, but also any incident winds or debris impacting on the bulb or bulb socket. In the case of large lamps and heavy sockets especially, this can result in breakage of the wires intermediate the sockets or disconnection of the wires and the socket at their usual points of interconnection within the socket. In the less typical but still frequent situation where the socket is itself supported, if the span between that socket and the next socket of the set is large, the weight of the intervening active wire stresses and may even be sufficient to break the electrical connection between the active wire and the self-supported socket.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an appliance holder (such as a lamp holder) in which the holder is supported by more than just the active wire.
Another object is to provide an appliance holder which provides support for the wires extending between the holders of another set intermediate their connections to the holders of the other set.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a self-fastening mechanical reinforcing means which may be applied to each holder to distribute the weight of each holder among the plurality of wires at each holder including those wires which do not make electrical contact at the holder.